Deadly landslide creates havoc in Jammu & Kashmir, many lives lost

Viewed from Kranla's grave, the slide appears as a gash in the hillsid

For ten-year-old Ghani, the morning of February 2, 1982, began, as usual, with a frugal meal. Minutes later, the lithe boy swung his stick at a herd of goats and the flock scrambled up the steep hillsides.

Ghani was one of 600 people of Sanbagli village, a community spread generously over a hill 165 km from Jammu on the road to Srinagar. The Bijladi nullah courses along 500 feet below the spot where Ghani was exercising his goats, and about 20 km ahead falls into the river Chenab.

Today, the nullah is blocked by thousands of tonnes of rubble, and Ghani's little hamlet of Kranla along with 19 villages, lies at the bottom of the gorge. As watches in the nearby administrative townlet of Ramban were showing 10.10 a.m., a huge killer mass of boulders and rocks burst out of the hill and smashed into Kranla.

Cries and screams were drowned out in an almost feral roar and the frozen Ghani watched as the gorge choked up with the debris, which rushed up the other side, before subsiding to form a dam a little over a hundred feet high.Dust Cloud: The force of the landslide was such that rocks and splintered pine trees were flung on to the highway, bringing buses and trucks to a screeching stop, as drivers wondered if their side of the hill would react in sympathy.

the lake forms before the dam of debris: brutal warning

Kaka Ram, an eyewitness to the calamity, was travelling from Srinagar when he watched the rocks commit murder. Says he: "I heard the kind of blast you hear when dynamite is being used. The debris filled the road and there was so much dust that you could not see your neighbour."

It took an hour for the dust cloud to clear and many more before the list of the dead could be made. Three families lived in Kranla and one, that of Abdul Rashid, was completely wiped out. Of the original 23 inhabitants of the ill-fated hamlet, only eight remain. Four people who had come to spend the day with their friends also fell under the deluge.

The luckiest of the survivors was Nimma, who lost one son, Shafi, but saw his other sons Yusuf, Kaku. Roshan Din and Ghani safe and sound afterward. Nimm'a's 80-year-old mother-in-law also survived. The second householder, Goga, died but his wife Musammat Dilla Josa and daughter Musammat Sadi are safe. All the living owed their lives to the simple fact that they were away when the landslide struck.

It is difficult to pin-point the cause of the collapse last fortnight, but geologists speculate that water inside the rock might have had something to do with it. The water that falls on the hills seeps into the rock through crevices, building up pressure. The rock on which Sanbagli is based is friable, racked with faults.

Relatives of the dead at tile site of the disaster: living with danger

Over the years, the danger advertised itself with occasional petty slides, but last fortnight, the straw was probably provided by freezing temperatures which turned the water to ice, resulting in an increase in volume and providing ammunition for the blast. However, only detailed studies of the mountain will provide a comprehensive explanation.

Natural Process: The Kranla disaster is a brutal warning sounded by a mauled environment. Landslides in themselves are not unnatural occurrences, and are part of the degradation process which, in collusion with other natural processes of erosion and weathering, lead to the sculpture of the earth's surface.

As far ago as 1785 James Hutton, the founder of geology, said poetically that "the surface of the land is made by nature to decay", but man is busy adding his mite to the process. The increase in population, unthinking terracing of the hills, the ruthless cutting down of trees and indiscriminate grazing all contribute to upsetting the delicate balance of nature and bring, quite literally, the house down.

The ravages are seen everywhere on the 294-km road from Jammu to Srinagar. Hillsides display deep gashes where the rock has simply given Up trying to stay together. The forests are thinning on the hills, despite lyrical exhortations nailed to the trunks, saying "take good care of your benefactors".

And on the road itself, more and more slides - ominous cascades of brittle rock - are adding themselves to the regular handful. In fact, only 0.5 km from Kranla, a gteaming contraption of wire protects the Khooni nullah bridge, the site of one of the most dangerous slides in the region. Ironically, the road itself might well have contributed to the damage to the region's ecology; the blasting has probably irreparably damaged the rock.Growing Lake: The Kranla landslide has created other problems. Even as the police were moving about the hillsides telling people to evacuate the area, the waters of the nullah had formed into a lake that was rising steadily.

The authorities expect the water to cut its own channel through the mound in a few weeks: they are making no attempt to extricate the bodies as that means shifting several hundred tonnes of rubble, including a few boulders twice the size of trucks. Says N.C. Dhar, additional deputy commissioner. Ramban: "We are concentrating on the survivors, giving them financial relief and helping them to live normal lives again. About the dead we can do nothing."

The survivors are determined to take up their lives once again on the very hill where their relatives met their end. Nimma and the others refused to live in the school buildings where arrangements had been made. Instead, they became the guests of others on the hill, tramping long distances last week to receive the money - Rs 2,000 each - from the hands of visiting state ministers.

Their familiarity with the constant danger is evident from the way in which a child was gambolling with his goats in a house very close to the lake, unmindful of the order to pull out. At the moment the slide is still growling, but it is certain that the hundred or so villagers who left the scene will go back when the slide quietens. Until the next batch of rolling stones comes calling.

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